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Originally posted by Dragadon:
Basically for me it bowls down to what humans have done with the planet as a result of over population and greed. If we as the most dominate race on the planet don't wake up and realise what we are doing to the Earth now (sometimes I think it is already too late), nature will strike back and in a horrible way. In a way it is already happening...you have bacteria that is resistent to most if not all known antibiotics popping up,
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I share your concerns with what we are doing to this planet, but I think we need to distinguish the good (e.g. vaccines and other medical advances) from the bad (e.g. genetically engineering plants to create sterile seed so the genetic engineers can corner the market on seed, not to mention general abuse to the planet in the forms of pollution, etc.).
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conditions that have been known to be genetic as well...like breast cancer.
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Breast cancer as with most cancers will not be eliminated by natural selection because they generally occur well after the age of reproduction; the genes are already passed on to the gene pool before the elimination of the gene carrier.
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Instead we let technology do the adapting for us...but the thing is...Mother Nature can change a heck of a lot faster then we can develop a new vaccine, antibotic, or other treatment.
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Evolutionary changes take thousands if not millions of years. Even granting the existence of a genetic mutation which provides, for example, immunity to smallpox, it takes many many generations exposed to smallpox to eliminate the gene for susceptibility to smallpox. If there is no existing gene for resistance to smallpox, the human gene pool is dependent upon a genetic mutation happening (which may not happen) that provides resistance before the evolutionary process can even begin.
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I will say this...I would let nature deal with me as it sees fit. If it deems me unfit...so be it, that would be my fate. I wear glasses (i am very nearsighted), have high cholestrol (which I am not taking medicine for FYI), and I have an increased risk of getting breast cancer because my mother had it. Do I care how long I live? No. It is the quality of ones life...not its length...that truly matters.
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Natural selection has nothing to do with the length of time that a single individual lives. It relates to an individual's ability to live long enough to procreate. If she/he can procreate, her/his genetic makeup has been "selected." I
do care how long you live, though, Dragadon. I hope that you live as long as any human could possibly expect with as good a quality of life as anyone could expect. And I'm glad that you avail yourself of the modern technology of optical correction of eyesight so you won't stumble into a paramite nest and meet an all too untimely end.
